Chung – Consulting: Abbvie; Grant/Research Support: Gilead, Mass Biologics The following people have nothing to disclose: Ruma Rajbhandari, Anna C. Juncadella, Anna K. Rubin, Tokunbo Temsirolimus purchase Ajayi, Ying Wu BACKGROUND AND AIM: Despite the rising incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the United States, the impact of Hospice Care on the outcome patients
with HCC has not been explored. The aim of this study is to examine the utilization and determinants of receiving Hospice Care among Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with HCC and its impact on survival. METHODS: We conducted a historical cohort study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results Registry (SEER) data linked to Medicare claims of patients who were diagnosed with primary HCC defined by ICD-O-3 topography code C22.0 and morphology codes 8170-8175. The proportion of patients who ever utilized Hospice Care after HCC diagnosis was calculated by patient’s demographics, tumor characteristics, non-cancer comorbidity, and SEER registries. Determinants of receiving Hospice Care
were assessed in logistic regression models. Survival time was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier INCB018424 order method and compared between patients with hospice enrollment and those without using the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the independent association of receiving Hospice Care with mortality risk. RESULTS: From 2001 to 2009, we identified 12,763 Medicare patients with HCC (66.1% men, 71.9% white) who met criteria for the study. Of the entire cohort, 48.9% died within a month of their cancer diagnosis. Overall, 7,267 (56.9%) patients received Hospice Care at least once between HCC diagnosis and selleck chemicals llc death. Older age, higher income, HMO membership, advanced tumor stage, and survival of over a month were all associated with higher rate of Hospice Care utilization (p-values from <0.001 to 0.05). On the other hand, male gender, non-white race, Hispanic ethnicity, never being married and living in a rural area were associated with lower rate of Hospice Care utilization
(P-values <0.001 to 0.05). The overall survival time ranged between 0 months to 110 months with a median survival of 4 months (IQR, 1-13 months). HCC patients who were enrolled in hospice care had better survival (median =5 months, IQR, 2-13 months) than non-hospice patients (median=3 months, IQR, 1-12 months) (P<0.0001). After adjusting for important confounding factors, hospice use remained significantly associated with lower risk of mortality (HR=0.81, 0.79-0.84). CONCLUSIONS: Despite a survival advantage, a large number of patients with HCC (43.1%) don’t receive hospice care. Further research is needed to determine how to address the use of Hospice care amongst the population of patients who are least likely to use hospice. Disclosures: The following people have nothing to disclose: Zobair Younossi, Li Zheng, Jessica Heintz, James N.